Field of the Invention
The present invention related generally to systems and methods for baby monitoring, and specifically to systems and method using cameras in monitoring babies in their cribs.
Description of the Related Art
Baby monitor cameras are commonly used to watch over babies from afar. By looking at the monitor, parents can check their baby's condition without being present next to their crib. Baby monitor cameras entered the market around 1993. The traditional baby monitors consist of a camera and a remote monitor. The camera is placed near the child and its video signal is transmitted by radio waves to the remote monitor. Most baby monitor cameras have also an infrared (IR) vision sensor to allow monitoring at night.
During the 2000s, with the introduction of personal computers into every home, parents started to use wireless Internet Protocol (IP) cameras for baby monitoring. (IP cameras had been used till then mainly for security reasons.) However, these parents were a small market since wireless IP cameras have to be configured to operate on a home network, which make them more complicated to install and maintain for parents. In addition, IP cameras can be hacked easily when connected to the Internet without taking extra security steps to secure them.
Today, baby monitor cameras offer various high-tech features, such as high-definition (HD) resolution, easy setup, secured connection, recording capabilities, 2-way audio, notifications on baby cry and/or movements, lullaby playing, control of multiple cameras, video over Skype, etc. Some of them are also equipped with additional non-vision-based sensors, e.g., movement sensor, temperature, heart/breath listener, and IR motion detector. As a result, many useful tasks that require in-depth analysis of image sequences cannot be performed, including, for example, creating a video summary of a baby's activities and development over time. Current baby monitor cameras also cannot use image sequences from multiple baby monitor cameras to detect abnormal baby movements and behaviors. It is therefore desirable to provide baby monitor cameras capable of handling a large amount of images sequences to allow data analysis and high-level reasoning of baby movements.
Another shortcoming of current baby monitor cameras is finding an appropriate place to put the baby monitor camera around the crib. Examples include (1) trying to put it on a shelf, but the view of the baby is from too shallow of an angle, too far of a location (bad resolution), and sometimes the baby is hidden by the rungs; (2) putting it on a higher shelf in the closet, next to the crib, but have to keep the closet door open at all times; (3) parents think about mounting the camera to the wall, but find it is too messy and also afraid power cable would damage the appearance of the baby's room; and (4) parents using tape to mount the camera to the rungs (which can be dangerous as the cable can go inside the crib). As such, there is a need for a better configuration and location of baby monitor cameras.